“How different would I be, if I'd never met him? Might I have had a normal dating life like my friends did, flitting from one guy to the next, never getting too serious or too invested in one while I was still so young? Who would I be if I hadn't endured the heartbreak of losing him & losing that part of myself that was built around him?”

“I'd never forgotten him, despite spending half my life trying to forget him. I'd given him everything: my love, my body, my pride, & parts of my heart & mind that I could never get back.”

“I wanted to tell him I loved him, that I'd always loved him, & that life-& I- had never been the same without him there.”

“And I could go the rest of my life like this, don't get me wrong. This was reality and I'd certainly learned to adapt to that reality. I didn't love it, I'd never love it, but I lived with it pretty well.”

“That's when I realized that part of me would probably always be lost in the past. That just seemed to be my personality: I was the one who couldn't stand change.”

“He was the only person I ever met whose soul I could clearly see in his eyes. And I had more faith in him than I've ever had in another human being.”

“I had to work out that he was always going to break my heart as long as I was willing to let him in.”